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March 25, 2012

Obamajad: Subliminal Scaremongering

Every campaign season, we get a few ads (usually web-only) that use rapid fire quick cuts to deliver messages that would otherwise cause howls. A visual academic (or a cognitive psychologist), I’m sure, could wring out all kinds of meaning by slowing down and analyzing the frames and sequencing of Santorum’s “Obamaville” (as in Amityville?) re-election horror show video.

What jumps out at me, however, is imagery and sequencing that the brain actually can process more consciously, having to do with scare tactic (and boogey man) #1 these days: a nuke- and Ahmadinejad-driven Iran.

The image above, of a man holding a gas pump/gun to his head, is one of the more notable and longer frames in the set up to this apocalyptic vision. And what is it driving this kind of “crude” despair? Could it be the discovery that our President and the not-so-stable, Muslim, Western-hating President of Iran could be one-in-the-same??

From the 31-42 second mark, the following narration plays:

“And every day the residents of this town must come to grips with the harsh reality that a rogue nation and sworn American enemy has become a nuclear threat.”

At the 40 second mark, while the narrator is saying “American enemy,” here are the images shown very quickly to the viewer:

Ahmedinejad

Obama

Back to Ahmedinejad

If anyone was under the illusion that the use of Islam and the “terror war” as a strategy for undermining Obama had ended, it hasn’t. It’s just being choreographed — here, at least — in warp drive.